Recollections of a Happy Life Being the Autobiography . [with] Some Further Recollections of a Happy Life . edited by her sister Mrs. John Addington Symonds. NORTH, Marianne

London, MacMillan 1892 & 93. Three volumes octavo publisher's gilt decorated cloth. Frontispieces in each, three other plates including the saintly Cameron portrait. Some browning or spotting at each end. First editions of still the only substantial record of the globe trotting botanical painter. Not so easy to find all three together; rather good, and a good association: each with the ownership signature, W. Botting Hemsley. Hemsley was a botanist at Kew, worked with North on cataloguing, and was author of the descriptive catalogue of the Marianne North gallery at Kew, commissioned by North. He is also credited with proof reading the diaries. There is a scattering of marginal pencilling but I found only one question mark next to a botanical name.The Recollections are a posthumous publication - she died in 1890 - they hadn't appeared earlier because she was too ill to take on the "retrenchments" required by MacMillan. I read somewhere that they were much tamed. I happily note that the academics have been stamping out their ground in the North industry accusing each other of deconstruction of her journals and other such improper behavior. *This item might cost more to post than quoted by abe.